She falls.

Eyes closed, wind roaring into her ears and tearing at her skin, dress fluttering around her and hair unravelling, loose strands flapping in the wind.

And, extending her Starsong, thinking of wishes and curses and pacts and promises, straining for that feeling of whispers and otherworldly souls, she reaches –

And there they are.

Voices, emotion, feeling, souls, songs, light flickering from beyond her closed eyelids, gold and white and silver and all the other colors that exist –

She opens her eyes.

An explosion of light, the torrent of songs and souls wrap themselves around her, a storm of stars –

And, in the heart of the Starstorm, she is carried up into the sky.

---------------------

Allioni watches from beside Tam and Chia as Yara makes her way over, leaving Raine and her mother to themselves (who waves away the rest of her men who attempt to approach her, commanding them to head to the corridor before the altar room to stand guard and await further orders, if any). Tam, eyeing the excess amount of blood on her hands and clothes, begins: "What happened?"

She hesitates, then sighs. "Anya."

There are no other words needed – the amount of blood alone is enough to get the point across.

"Oh," he says, quietly, while Chia mutters an "I'm sorry" in condolence.

And Allioni himself – well, he isn't quite sure how to feel. It had probably been unrealistic of them to assume no one would've died, and yet they had gone on with that assumption anyway – or more accurately, subconsciously realized and ignored it. Still, despite how they had only known Anya for a short while, she had helped them – had even gone all this way for them – so instead, he offers a silent thanks to her and a promise that they'll see this through to the end. She'd probably appreciate that more, anyway.

Yara offers a wry smile. "Don't be. She didn't regret the choice she made – and I think that, in the end, she was happy that she got her peace." She darts a glance towards the vine-hidden corridor at the back of the room. "And Kaya?"

"Snuck off," Tam says. "She's fine. She did get shot earlier, but I think it's already healed. And as for our attempting to break the pact – well, we can only see how it unfolds from here on out." He grimaces. "Hopefully it'll work, preferably before anyone else manages to get here."

"After all of this, the rest of it is up to her, huh?" Chia says, looking towards the corridor as well.

"Her, and the Starmother," Yara agrees. "It is a bit strange, isn't it? That in the end, it only comes down to a decision from a person we can't much influence, and who we don't matter to much in the grand scheme of things."

"Yeah," Allioni says. "Hopefully it'll all pay off."

In an abandoned temple in the mountains of Solaire, four children watch, side-by-side, as a pillar of light shoots up into the night sky and beyond.

---------------------

One moment, she is in the heart of a storm, souls and stars and songs, gales of wind and lights of all colors – both those that exist and those that don't – while at the edges is a night sky and a universe of blacks and blues and purples, spilling into each other like the paint on an artist's palette –

And the next moment, she blinks, and she is in a completely different place – the waters of a raging sea in the midst of a typhoon calming to a surface so still it could be a mirror in an instant.

There is a single pathway unwinding in front of her – marble veined with silver and gold, lined with white, almost glowing flowers on both sides and carved columns interspersed in between. She turns – behind her the pathway ends, fading into the rest of the blacks and blues and purples wrapping around her, galaxies up and down and left and right no matter where she looks.

It seems there is only one way forward.

She exhales, and her breath mists in front of her in a cloud of white, which is strange in more ways than one – according to what she learned, there isn't supposed to be oxygen in space at all, and despite how her breath clouds, it doesn't feel the least bit cold.

Then again, she supposes that this isn't space, not exactly.

She takes one last look around, breathes in and breathes out, gathers her courage.

And then she begins to walk.

The path is straightforward, no forks or splits or diverging roads, curving like a river, but in a uniform way that speaks of someone having made it – and yet it's long as well, seemingly no end in sight, as if it might go on forever. The scenery stays mostly the same, too – though, as she walks, the path widens and more variations of flowers appear, all glowing, all strange but beautiful, and all who definitely do not exist on Earth.

Once or twice, she passes fountains – burbling with clear, silver-blue-tinted water, made of pure white stone and every inch filled with delicate carvings. She spots several gold bird-perches designed to look like half-cages as well, some of them with birds just as strange and beautiful as the flowers, and enters a grove of trees similar to birches with leaves like the twilight just as quickly as she exits.

She walks on for what might be seconds or minutes or hours, feeling weirdly calm and in no rush to reach the end, and not at all out of breath either. It's when she's idly beginning to wonder when the path does end that all of a sudden, she finds herself standing in a hall made of the same stone she's seen everywhere, the ceiling painted with indecipherable, swirling murals arching high above her, silver torches in their sconces flickering with a cold white-blue light that illuminates the area.

"This is..." she murmurs, voice soft but somehow still loud enough to echo.

"My throne room, yes," another voice interrupts – firm and clear and authoritative, the voice of a monarch. Kaya turns, and, instinctively, she knows.

The woman in front of her wears gilded white and aqua robes, her long hair draped over her shoulders shifting between black and dark blue and purple in the light and seemingly speckled with tiny dots of silver, her skin shimmering with gold and just a little too bright to look at directly. There's no crown on her head, but the poise and grace she holds herself with is enough to signify who she is.

The Starmother.

Queen Liliana.

She gulps, mind still buzzing over what the correct protocol is when faced with someone as important as this, then just goes with curtsying as deep as possible while hurriedly stammering out an unsure, "Y – your majesty."

"There's no need for formalities," Liliana says, waving a hand. "Now rise, child. We have much to talk about, no?"

"I – yes!" Kaya lifts her head. "I came here to ask you to break... the pact. Is that... allowed?" She shifts uncertainly, looks down at her feet again, fiddling with her hands behind her back.

"I know. I have been observing you and your friends throughout your journey. And yes – the pact can be broken, and quite easily."

"So... you're okay with it?" Kaya asks, holding her breath, hoping, praying.

"Yes. I'll allow it," Liliana replies with a dip of her head. "But first – walk with me, will you? We have much to talk about."

---------------------

"This," Liliana begins, and in a wave of her hand they are in a different place – a wide area full of the same birch trees and flowers, but more of them, both in quantity and species, along with a small waterfall and brook wending its way through the plants, "is my personal garden."

A pause, Kaya chances, "It's... very beautiful?" She winces as it comes out as more of a question than a compliment, but Liliana doesn't seem to notice (and if she does, she doesn't seem to mind much), seemingly distracted.

The queen makes a noncommittal noise, then shakes her head as if clearing out her thoughts. "Forgive me, I was thinking about something and got sidetracked." Then she begins to walk, long, elegant strides, but not so that Kaya has trouble keeping up. And, out of the blue, she begins: "First, I must offer my apologies. I know it does not mean much, if anything at all, in the face of the suffering and pain you and those before you have gone through, but still – I am deeply, deeply sorry."

"Ah – no, I understand," Kaya replies hurriedly. "You did what you thought was best for everyone as a ruler, and you probably save all our people that way, so..."

She smiles, gentle. "It's alright. Your words are kind, but you do not have to attempt to afford me this level of respect. I would not wish you to do so, not after what you've had to face due to my rash decisions, and I would not blame you even if you were to treat my apologies with scorn." A moment of silence, and then she continues: "I assume you've heard the story of how the pact came to be?"

"I... yes," Kaya nods. "Anya told me the gist of it."

"I see," Liliana murmurs. "The story she told you – the one taught to all Stars, these days – do not have any lies in them. However, they aren't the whole truth, either." She stops, then, at a balcony with silver railings shaped like vines. Kaya stops beside her too, sucking in a sharp breath at the view spread out below her – the same marble walkways and architecture she saw earlier, still decorated with plants and fountains and columns and torches – but now there are buildings, too, and people, houses and bustling markets and shops. All as far as the eye can see, and all floating in the starry void of space – or their space, at least.

"Beautiful, no?" Liliana asks, and Kaya nods again, still surveying the entire landscape. "Though I haven't been for a while – I remember Earth to be the same. A different sort, perhaps, but just as beautiful nonetheless, even if I will always love this realm more. Though now, I realize maybe loving some things too much can be a bad thing as well," she says, frowns and continues, haltingly: "I did... some horrible things, to protect this place," she admits. "Including the pact. Especially the pact – and considering I was at fault for the war in the first place, and for losing it"

Kaya glances towards her. "What do you... mean?"

Liliana fixes her gaze on the horizon, placing a hand on the railing, and says: "The Stars made contact with the humans first. It was my decision. But more than that – we were the one who helped them. We gave them fire, gave them metals, taught them about tools and words and languages. We were the ones who helped light the spark on the fuse, so to speak. And then... well, eventually, the humans were convinced we were holding out on them. They wanted to be greater than us."

"And so they waged war," Kaya says quietly.

"Precisely. It caught us by surprise, in all honesty – we're a largely peaceful species, and we've never had to really deal with war before, much less something of this scale. But what the humans lacked in strength, they made up for in numbers and cunning and brutality. Oh, of course, at the start, we were still stronger. We could've wiped them out – in fact, there were quite a few Stars advocating for it, gradually growing in number as the war progressed."

"But you didn't want to," Kaya says, more of a statement than a question, "didn't you?"

"We didn't," Liliana confirms, "most of all I. Of course we didn't – we had raised them and watched as they grew, and even as they surpassed us in some aspects. We admired them, their willpower and tenacity, how they always fought against the worse odds and how they made advancements in leaps of time that would've taken us much longer – all this despite being weaker and younger and dying easier than us. But more than that – we loved them. Sometimes quite literally – you'd be surprised how it was back then, when the passages were still open and humans and Stars mingled freely, laughing and loving under the same sky. And so, we didn't fight with all our power. We tried to minimize casualties, to negotiate for peace. Yet none of it – threatening or talking or begging or whatever we could think of – none of it worked. Until, propelled forward even faster in their evolution by the war, they grew too strong for us to handle. And we lost. And that was when we made a last attempt to have even a semblance of peace – the Pact of Adalina."

"And they agreed?" Kaya asks, curious. "To have the passageways sealed forever?"

"Unexpected, isn't it?" Liliana asks, her smile just the tiniest bit dry. "But no – you're right, in assuming they wouldn't have readily accepted it. However, their leader – Adamus, that is – was one who didn't want any more bloodshed than necessary. By then, a lot of people had grown weary of the war – and who wouldn't have, after two hundred years of fighting without stopping? I'd guess he was weary too, being the sixteenth leader, having had the mantle passed down to him through generations, most of them cut short. His, as I recall, had been passed down to him by his older brother who had been killed in action just a few months after their father died. But, at any rate, we negotiated all the details, tried to sway both our peoples to the idea. And we succeeded, more or less – at the very least, we convinced enough people that we could create the Pact without much dissent. But look what it's brought us now – only more bloodshed and hatred and both our peoples lost to greed."

"That's..." Kaya stops, starts again. "It isn't your fault. You were backed into a corner – you didn't have any other way out."

Liliana shakes her head. "Regardless of what the circumstances were at the time – I still agreed to it. And I still caused much death for our people, no matter if it would have been reduced in comparison with if we continued fighting. So once again –" she turns to face Kaya and bows, deep enough that her hair falls to cover her face completely, "– I am sorry for what I have done. And I hope," she straightens up, "that you will never repeat the same mistakes, whatever the scale. And, if you can," her mouth tightens, "please tell Hwa Yara that I apologize for what she has had to go through as well."

"I – ah – you really don't have to –" Kaya sputters frantically, "– do all this –"

"I do," she says, and Kaya falls silent at that. "And I'll spend the rest of my life atoning as well."

"Is that... why you brought me here?" she speaks up again. "To... apologize?"

"Partially, yes," Liliana says, tipping her head, "but also... it's something I felt you deserved to know, and this will likely be the only chance I ever get to talk to you in person."

"You mean..." Kaya realizes, eyes widening, "if we break the Starcurse –"

"Then all the passages will be no more," Liliana finishes. "And that will truly be the end of all contact between humans and Stars. It would be for the best."

"I..." Kaya trails off, then nods. "Yeah. You're right."

Silence, again – the two of them look out towards the city once more. "It really is beautiful," Kaya says quietly.

"It is," Liliana agrees. A pause, and then: "You'll be staying behind on Earth, won't you?"

"I – yes," she replies. "I don't think I could leave them behind like that – not after everything."

"That's good," Liliana says. "You have good friends." Then, turning from the balcony with a small sigh: "Well, we've talked for long enough, and I've already said all that I wanted to say. It's time to leave – let's go break the pact."